Re: [boost] Boost building with CMake

From: Darren Garvey (lists.drrngrvy_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-05-09 17:51:13

On 09/05/07, Michael Caisse <boost_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> All this to say... I don't care as a user how it builds as long as it is
> easy to do.

Yup. This brings up the point that there is no INSTALL file in the source
tree. A link to the new getting started guide would make sense, IMHO.

Library Author Experience -
> All I can comment here is that I don't see a lot of complaints that bjam
> and Boost.Build don't do what people need. I see complaints that people
> have to learn another build tool or that the current tool is
> under-documented.
> Please correct me if I'm wrong, but my own experience for both library and
> application development (including writing custom generators) has been
> that
> the Boost.Build system is more than capable. I am sure this didn't come
> overnight
> and that there has been enormous thought and iteration to create such a
> system.
> So now that there is one... what is the effort to maintain it?

I can't help wondering how much of the apathy towards Boost.Build is borne
out of the awkwardness of BBv1 and the countless support requests that came
in regarding it. BBv2 is so much cleaner and Simply more intuitive than BBv1
that I (for one) hope it stays under development. If this CMake transition
happens, I can only see it being forgotten about and fading into obscurity.

I just hope BBv2 isn't skipped over too quickly before we assume there is as
much resistance to it as there was to BBv1. Saying that - please correct me
if I'm wrong - but a CMake transition, if it happened, doesn't sound like it
would happen before 1.36. I suppose that means BBv2 at least has _some_ time
to prove its worth.

Darren